


Come Closer, Dig Down (You Might Like What I've Found)

by synchronized_strangers



Series: Bad Intentions [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Generation Relationship, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Grooming, Masturbation, Peter Hale's got a plan, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 07:35:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synchronized_strangers/pseuds/synchronized_strangers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>She doesn’t stop wearing ridiculous shoes. She does stop telling him to pick her up because she’s realized she doesn’t have to. He’s always there, waiting. It’s possible she’s beginning to understand what that means. Not the depth of it, of course, but nevertheless. It’s progress, and it’s opportunity.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Curiosity is such a pleasant road to hell.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Closer, Dig Down (You Might Like What I've Found)

She doesn’t stop wearing ridiculous shoes. She  _does_  stop telling him to pick her up because she’s realized she doesn’t have to. He’s there every day, waiting. It’s possible she’s beginning to understand what that means. Not the depth of it, of course, but nevertheless. It’s progress, and it’s opportunity.

Curiosity is such a pleasant road to hell.

At first her questions are begrudging, little moments wrested from her resolve not to ask. “You don’t have to work?”

“If I didn’t want to, no, I wouldn’t have to work.”

After a long pause, “The insurance settlement?”

It only takes him a few moments to move past the image of his daughter with her hair singed away, dead eyes staring up at him with something like relief. “Most of that went to my delightful little hell. The coma ward doesn't run on altruism. No, I had several long term investments before the fire that matured while I was incapacitated.”

“Were you?” she ventures, her heart ratcheting up and skipping alternately. “Incapacitated?”

It’s so unexpected, he finds himself blinking, struck by the sudden realization that no one else has bothered to ask. She seems torn between fear he won’t answer and fear that he will. Vaguely, he wonders if _he_ understands what it means that she chose to ask.

There’s an unmistakable rasp in his voice when he says, “Not as much as I would have liked.”

The rest of the ride is silent, but the next day when she slides into his car, she looks right at him, her eyes sharp and focused as she asks, “How did you bring yourself back from the dead?”

“Technically, you brought me back from the dead.”

His nitpicking earns him an eye roll and a hard stare, but there’s something indulgent about the gesture. Something familiar.

It thrills him a little to see, riles up something dark and seething. His jaw aches with the urge to change but he forces it down. Sets the urge aside until he can indulge it.

“How far have you gotten with the bestiary?”

“About a third of the way in.” When he side eyes her she adds, “I’ve been busy. Some of us have lives.”

He gives her a look that he hopes communicates clearly that she isn't clever. “Cute. Ask me again when you finish.”

She isn’t even completely in the car the next day before the question rolls off her lips. “How did you come back from the dead?”

“The same way I woke up from an eight year coma.”

Seeing her eyes light up with epiphany is breath taking. As bright and quick as lightning; just as much potential to destroy. “That’s why you needed Derek.”

“Bingo.” It’s a pleasure in and of itself to know she understands. To be the keeper of secrets, the one who reveals. Deaton is much more comprehensible to Peter in context. “Being the alpha confers more than just physical power. If you have a… well, for lack of a better word, a compatible vessel, a conduit, and a source, you can channel it for all manner of things.”

“What kind of things?” Her voice slips into his ear, steady and strong. Silk sliding over steel. Over claws. Do her scars ache in the night, he wonders? Does she ever prod and press at them to remind herself of her own mortality? To remind her of him?

Would she moan if he did it for her? Would she _scream_?

The mask falls into place smoothly, easily, even if his grin is a shade too dark. It’s probably safe enough to show her a sliver of the truth, he decides. Lydia knows all too well that some masks are just truths in plain sight.

“What did you have in mind?” and he has to admit, he curious to know what she's come up with.

Naturally, she doesn't answer, but after that, every afternoon is full of questions. “Do you need to be an alpha to act as a source?” “Does it have to be from wolf to wolf?” “What about humans?” “What about me?”

Peter sends a silent ‘thanks’ to the universe for giving the Argent girl a nervous break down just before Jackson’s parents decided enough was enough and left town. Someone up there must still like him, or at least not care enough to see that he’s stopped.

It’s not like he’s plotting genocide, after all. He just wants a little piece of the pie. Compared to the rest of the world, Peter’s plans are downright tame.

So he gives her what she wants: answers. Where possible, he even gives her the truth. “No, it doesn’t have to be an alpha, but alphas are more powerful.” “It is easier to stick to one species.” “Mystically speaking, humans are blank slates. You’re magically prototypical.” “You… You’re an exception,” and it isn’t a lie. It’s just not the whole truth.

He could tell her she isn’t asking the right question, but really, why would he? She’ll figure it out on her own, probably. In the meanwhile, semi-ignorance is bliss.

She never invites him in, but she doesn’t protest when he takes the long way, either.

If part of his reason is that he likes being trapped in a small space with her, likes the scent of her worked down into the seats, into his clothes, likes when he can smell her on his skin at night even hours later, well, that’s between him and his motives.

He never claimed they were pure.

Every day, the questions get harder. More specific. Two weeks into the arrangement, she knows more about magical theory than most practitioners. He doesn’t mind explaining. It’s useless to her anyway, at least directly. He isn’t sure if she understands what it really means to be immune, yet, but she will.

Sooner rather than later, he suspects, since she’s looking in the right place.

“I’m beginning to think the Argents are intentionally dense,” she announces, derision and frustration warring in her tone. “Either there were a few generations of complete idiots or someone left some of the information out deliberately.”

Quicksilver sharp and just as mercurial, he favors her with a smile. “Noticed that, have you?”

“It’s infuriating.” She glares out the window, fingers playing absently with her curls. Not for the first time, he wishes their arrangement afforded him the luxury of watching her instead of the road.

“I suspect it’s a mixture of the two. Hunters aren’t exactly known for their trusting dispositions.”

Her laugh is a breathy tease. “Understatement.”

“What caught your eye?”

“Jeanette Argent’s account of the origin story. I can’t decide if she wanted to make sure no one else could find that cave or if she was just honestly stupid enough not to note the location.”

“Hmm.” Not what he’d been expecting. Not for at least another few weeks. He’d wanted more time with her before they reached this point. Frankly, he isn’t sure he’s laid a strong enough foundation. He can’t be sure of her. Not yet. But if he holds back now, she'll learn later on that he's not the open book she's come to expect.

In the quiet of the car, her gaze falls on him, palpable, like fingers round his throat. “Peter.”

It isn’t a question. Nothing for it then, and really, she wouldn’t be the kind of ally he needs if she were less driven. He can’t allow himself to forget, the very qualities that much her valuable make her dangerous. A knife will surely cut a careless hand, even the one that wields it.

Especially the one that wields it.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Nothing.”

She doesn’t even hesitate, but he can’t quite help himself. He has to ask. “Really? Nothing?”

“Nothing,” she says. Straight forward. Guileless. He can hear the echo of an old hurt. She doesn’t even try to disguise it. She’s comfortable with him knowing. She  _trusts_  him with it.

Heat pools in his gut, dark and strong. Strong enough to carry through in his voice. “I’ll be over in the morning, around ten. Does that work for you?”

The car floods with fear and arousal, the two tangling together into something intoxicating. It’s… not helping his self-control. He takes the turn onto her street a little faster than he should, but he needs to get her out of the car. Now, before he really does see what she'd do with his hand on her scars.

She’s got a white-knuckled grip on the door handle, her pulse racing just as hard and fast as it does in his dreams. “Yes,” she whispers, her chest tight and the sound a little strangled as he brakes hard in the drive way.

“I’ll be here at ten, then.” And he’s sounding a little strangled himself but god, the heat of her skin might as well be pressed against him. For the first time she doesn’t step out of the car, she flees, her steps hurried and her shoes apparently forgotten in her haste.

She’s at the door when he masters himself enough to roll down the window and call after her, “Dress warm. And wear boots.”

He makes it as far as the next side street before he has to pull over, jerking himself hard and fast. His skin is too dry and his cock is too hard and it’s almost painful but he doesn’t care. He might as well be incapable of giving a fuck with the scent of sex in the air, on his tongue. He mouths at the cuff of his jacket until he can taste her. Until he can summon the ghost of her, torn up and bloody under his hands, his body.

It’s the thought of her eyes on his face, though, that pushes him over the edge. He sees them lit up, hungry. He sees them  _gleam_ , trust and fear shining at him from their depths...

His orgasm rips through him like she’s the one with claws and he can’t help but wonder what it will do to him when he has the reality instead of the dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Come [hang out](http://synchronized-strangers.tumblr.com). I only bite if you ask nicely. :D


End file.
